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A silhouette of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leading presidential candidate in Mexico, during a rally on April 20, 2018 in Mexico City. (Photo by Hector Vivas/Getty Images)

"The market is not appropriately pricing in the risk of NAFTA termination," says Benito Berber, a Latin America research analyst for Nomura in New York. If this deal does not get done by May, as the market is now hopeful it will, then Washington negotiators will probably have to contend with a new, populist president in Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, aka AMLO.

He, too, is no fan of NAFTA. An AMLO win would put dueling populists in power in Mexico City and Washington. And while neither Trump nor AMLO enjoys a whole lot of support by establishment politicians, both of them want a new NAFTA or no NAFTA, as Trump reiterated on Monday.

Mexicans are looking set to elect AMLO on July 1. He leads all polls against establishment rivals by double digits. Mexican elections do not require run-off votes, so even though AMLO is not expected to garner a majority, so long as he wins the most votes he will replace Enrique Pena Nieto, Mexico's current president. Nieto is not running.

Jose Antonio Meade Kuribreña from Nieto's Institutional Revolution Party, or PRI, is running along with Ricardo Anaya Cortés from the National Action Party, or PAN, of which ex-president Vicente Fox was a member. Both PRI and PAN are considered corrupt by most of the populous, helping AMLO steamroll both men in the polls.

The first debates were held on Sunday. AMLO sounded like a typical political frontrunner, saying every other candidate was against him, ready and willing to smear at will. The iShares MSCI Mexico (EWW) ETF fell 2.1% on Monday, underperforming the benchmark emerging markets index which fell around 0.8%. Mexico's stock market was down again in dollar terms on Tuesday morning.

AMLO is Trump's Bizarro World counterpart. He is highly palatable to the left wing -- the Latin American Che Guevera intellectuals, and the labor union types fighting their perennial battle against the capitalist Yankees. Like Trump, AMLO thinks Mexicans got a bad deal in NAFTA, making it a low-cost hub for greedy American multinationals. While AMLO opposes corruption, he also frowns upon foreign investment into Mexican state assets, like oil and gas, and he proposes greater state intervention in the economy. Like Trump, he too is for higher wages for everyday Mexicans.

PAN's Anaya is AMLO's pragmatic cousin. PAN is a traditionally pro-business, non-ideological party that claims to be focused on fighting corruption and violence. They are also in favor of a universal basic income system and improving education.

PRI's Meade has pledged to keep the structural reforms investors like, such as opening Mexican deepwater oil and gas to foreigners. He has also declared a willingness to take it to the drug cartels and fight corruption, but this is a hard sell considering the fact that the drug cartels have only gotten stronger under PRI.

President Trump with the French first lady and President on April 23, 2018. POTUS latest: "New NAFTA or No NAFTA." (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

AMLO was a one-term mayor of Mexico City between 2000 and 2005. He ran for president in 2006 and 2012 and lost twice. Investors think the third time will be the charm, much like it was for Brazilian labor leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who rose to power in 2002.

"The problem with AMLO is no one knows whether he would be like Lula, a pragmatic capitalist, or more like Hugo Chavez, a diehard populist," says Gerardo Rodriguez, a fund manager with BlackRock in New York and a former Mexican official in the Finance Ministry. "I think Mexico's institutions are strong, so even if he wins he will not be allowed to be too radical," Rodriguez said.

AMLO lost to Nieto in 2012 and focused on the creation of his new political party, the Movement of National Regeneration. Despite its growing popularity, AMLO's party is still too small to provide meaningful support for him in Congress should he win in July.

Mexicans see AMLO as the Anti-Trump. The two political leaders have something in common: both think their country got the shaft on NAFTA.Barclays

Investors highly doubt PRI wins. So the anti-AMLO vote goes to PAN's Cortes. It's an uphill climb for him and his star power is rather dim.

Anaya has taken to attacking the PRI on corruption, but PAN is a major party and so he is facing an anti-establishment wave.

And so as a result, AMLO held a 43.7% share in an April 5 Bloomberg poll, followed by Cortes with 30.2% and Kuribreña with 20.3%.

Many investors are watching for Mexico's new president and his views on oil reforms enacted under PRI. AMLO will put all new contracts for deepwater oil and gas made in 2013 onward under review. The risk of canceling some contracts is higher than any other candidate. Anaya and Meade are status quo on this. AMLO says he will stop all future privatizations in the sector, with Anaya saying the government is not interested in funding new oil and gas refineries and Meade is keeping the existing system. AMLO will also use his populist street cred to ram through gasoline price controls. The other two candidates oppose this.

PRI's decision to let gasoline prices rise and fall with demand led to street riots in 2016.

Theurer and Berber at Nomura agree that investors are not yet pricing in an AMLO win. An AMLO-win scenario has the most negative implications of the two other leading candidates. It impacts portfolio and corporate investments, namely oil and gas, and will hurt the peso in the short-term until the market comes to grips with Mexico under AMLO.

That sell-off, however, will be a buy-in opportunity.

Mexico’s economy remains resilient in the face of uncertainty, and its economic institutions -- such as the central bank -- are conservative and transparent. The market's outlook on Mexico is positive.

Last week, Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a 21-page strategy report that Mexico was even the better than Brazil, an economy in an early-cycle recovery.

For investors who have to be in Mexico, or who just like gambling on political risk, Barclays recommends stocks of Mexican companies with dominant market share, and who have either a profitable foreign unit or a positive trade balance. Their favorites are Arca Continental (-6.95% in 12 months); Walmex, the Mexican Walmart (+14.77%); Carlos Slim's America Movil (+25.6%); Fomento Economico Mexicano (+0.86%); Cemex (-21.5%); Mexichem (+11.4%); Pacific Airport Group (+3.83%) and Cuervo (+11.78%).

I've spent 20 years as a reporter for the best in the business, including as a Brazil-based staffer for WSJ. Since 2011, I focus on business and investing in the big emerging markets exclusively for Forbes.